Archive for September, 2011

Posted on September 9, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

AisleFinder a NewMe Accelerator startup raises angel round & launches new partnership with TaskRabbit

As the saying goes, and then there where three! Leaked via Twitter last night and now public information, AisleFinder which enables shoppers to quickly and efficiently find the items they want to buy within grocery stores announced they have raised an angel round. Curtiss Pope, AisleFinder, CEO doesn’t disclosed how much the company has raised but he tells the story about how and why he raised fund for AisleFinder in a post called Money Talks. From the Facebook announcement Curtis says, that” Aislefinder will use the funds to take care of some things, and also achieve some milestones over the coming months that will help us serve our customers better”.

Along with the funding news AisleFinder announced a new partnership with TaskRabbit to provide grocery delivery for their current users. The new AisleFinder and TaskRabbit partnership currently supports San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Boston.

This makes the third startup that participated in the NewMe Accelerator summer program to announce have raised startup capital joining OneSchool and BeCouply. I’m sure it’s not the last. Congrats Curtis and the AisleFinder team.

Be sure to read the cnet article that featured Curtiss Pope, AisleFinder and the NewMe Accelerator here: Minority entrepreneurs set up own Valley incubator .

To other minority led startups seeking to raise funds, good luck and continue to prove me wrong!

Posted on September 8, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

The harsh reality for black entrepreneurs in the web/tech space. Your chances of raising startup capital are slim to none. Someone prove me wrong please!

Flickr photo by By rickz

Let’s start with some facts:
African Americans make up 1% of Internet company founders nationally. (source)
Whites make up 87% startup founders, with Asians make up 12% (source)
Minority angel investors account for 2% of the angel population. (source)
Minority-owned firms represented 6% of the entrepreneurs that presented their business concept to angel investors. (source)
92% of venture backed startups are male (source)
California ranks as the highest state in terms of number of VC deals with 48%, with New York at 14% and Boston at 8% (source)
Half of the startup founders who Raise Money ages range from 35-44 (source)
Black unemployment: Highest in 27 years (source)

Hot Topic for 2011: Black Startup Founders/ Entrepreneurs
This year like never before have conversations, meetups and programs been launched and talked about why are there so few blacks in tech, or why black startup founder are not getting the same opportunities or access or why such programs as the NewMe Accelerator and organizations such as Black Founders are needed. It’s about time is how I feel about since I’ve been in the web/tech space since before the first dot com bubble and even though the internet is suppose to make things a level playing field, sadly when it comes to launching a web tech startup and getting funding it’s not. Some people act like racism doesn’t exits and want to say if you have a great idea or product, you have the same chances as everyone else. I tell you that is just not true in most cases.

True Stories from Silicon Valley:
This summer while we were in Silicon Valley for the NewMe Accelerator we learned a lot and kept hearing a few repetitive stories. One was about a young teenage Indian programmer who worked for another startup, left and pitched an idea, no app, no MVP, nothing but an idea and walked away with over $700,000 in funding. Another was from leading Venture Capitalist and investors such as Jay Jamison, Mitch Kapor, Michael Arrington, and Ron Conway that there are not enough Black startup founders and/or they don’t see enough Black Startup founders walk through their doors and/or there are not enough successful Black startup founders who have raised funds as examples for others. So if you don’t see the need for such programs such as the NewMe Accelerator or Black Founders or groups such as Blacks in Tech. Don’t argue with me… I dare you to argue with them.

flickr photo by Juan Haro Rodríguez

Black Founders/ Entrepreneurs Are you ready?
Since the launch of the NewMe Accelerator we have received tones of request from Black Entrepreneurs with startup ideas looking for help in terms of mentorships, funding, partners, investments, design help, programming help, you name it. But most of the time the request is looking for small seed investments to get an an app or product launched. When the phone rings I can almost predict the conversation, it goes a little something like this: Hello, I have an idea or startup that’s going to be big. Can you help with funding or mentoring or introduce me to someone with money. Every now and then someone will say, I’m building a new social network that’s going to be bigger than Facebook and I my response is usually, Ok, can you send me a deck and after that I hear nothing.

Regardless of the phone calls or who has an idea or not, one thing I learned being in the Valley during the summer is there’s a system, a format a bar set by other startup founders to raising capital and that bar is high. It doesn’t matter what color you are, if you don’t follow the protocol or format or standard unless you have a NBA friend, or rich uncle or have the right people in your network with capital and trying to raise money for your startup in this economy…good luck!

Getting in and making a difference:
With everyone launching a startups these days or have an idea to launch one, this is why the business / community accelerators are on the rise and startup accelerator/incubator such as Y combinator, Founders Lab, Tech Stars, and 500 Startups are like the NBA and NFL draft for entrepreneurs.

The numbers for how many black startup founders who have participated in such programer have yet to be made public and while a few incubators are well diverse such as 500 Startups in terms of race and gender none have had a large or a significant amount of Black founders participate over the years. If I’m wrong, show me the data and explain the 1%. This is why we launched the NewME Accelerator, it’s why I’m happy to see the growth and future of the Black Founders group in Silicon Valley and why programs such as the DreamIt and Comcast Ventures for minority-led startups are being created.

If you’re a founder that makes it into one of these programmers, consider yourself lucky and take advantage of the opportunity because you may not get another chance and there are thousands of entrepreneurs who would love to be in your shoes.

Your startup chances by idea and team to raise money:
I don’t have any hard data yet but this is my observation for Black Startup Founders/ Entrepreneurs:

Idea + Team = Chances to raise money

Start a new social network
Single founder with no startup and no coding experience = .5%
Team (developer, CTO, designer) with little experience = 2%
Single founder with experience from a huge successful social network = 4%

Launch a hip hop or Urban platform or urban blog/website or urban video site
Single founder with no startup and no coding experience = 1%
Team (developer, CTO, designer) with little experience = 3%
Single founder with experience = 5%

Launch a mobile (iPad, iPhone or Android) app
Single founder with no startup and no coding experience = 5%
Team (developer, CTO, designer) with little experience = 10%
Single founder with experience = 20%
Team (developer, CTO, designer) with little experience = 30%

*If you’re a black woman and single founder = -1%

The harsh reality for black entrepreneurs in the web/tech space. Your chances of raising startup capital are slim to none. If you’re an entrepreneur, good luck and prove me wrong. If you’re an accelerator or incubator, open your doors and prove me wrong. If you’re a venture capitalist please prove me wrong!

PS:
There’s nothing wrong with launching a startup, not raising or taking any money and being successful by making money form your customers. Good luck!

Posted on September 7, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

You Are What you Tweet – Create your own Twitter Data-Generated infographic with visual.ly

You Are What you Tweet – Create your own Twitter Data-Generated infographic with visual.ly

Posted on September 6, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

BeCouply, a NewMe Accelerator startup receives Pre-Seed Investment from Kapor Capital

Today it was announced that BeCouply, the mobile app that helps couples have epic social lives received Pre-Seed Investment from Kapor Capital. This is the second startup that participated in the NewMe Accelerator that announced they have raised capital. OneSchool was the first as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

As reported on BlackWeb 2.0:

BeCouply just received a pre-seed investment by Kapor Capital.

“We’re making a pre-seed investment in BeCouply to enable them to complete development work on the product, said Mitchell Kapor. We think the team has identified a social network segment, couples, which is currently not well served.”

BeCouply allows couples to engage and interact with each other on a different level. The app intends to capture the moments people share as a couple and connect with other couples on the go. In addition, users will be able to get new date ideas and deals.

With the investment, BeCouply will come to life sooner than later so that couples can start sharing their memories instantly.

This is great news as many has asked how would we measure the success of the NewMe Accelerator. I’ve often said the fact that we decided to launch the accelerator, move to Silicon Valley for the summer and complete the program we’re successful. But in the startup space its all about raising capital and not just launching a program. So… now that makes two NewMe Accelerator startups out of 11. For the startups in the program that are still in the process or trying to raise capital good luck and keep working hard. To investors… #cutthecheckalready!

You can see the full list of startups that participated in the NewMe Accelerator 2011 first class here: http://newmeaccelerator.com/startups/

Posted on September 5, 2011 - by Wayne Sutton

Life via The Holstee Manifesto

Live Your Dream

via The Holstee Manifesto – Live Your Dream | HOLSTEE.

H/T Tim Moore for sharing this on on google+